ITV Digital may find a buyer

AS MANY as 60 prospective buyers for all or part of the failed ITV Digital have come forward in the past 24 hours, including some interested in purchasing it as a going concern, it was revealed today.

Administrators Deloitte & Touche announced yesterday that they were ready to break the company up and sell off its assets, as money to keep it going was running out.

Culture Secretary Tessa Jowell today insisted that the company's collapse did not spell the end for the Government's hopes of switching the whole country to as still 'positive', she said.

But she made clear that there would be no financial bail-out for ITV Digital or the Football League, which is owed £178.5m in broadcasting fees.

While the Government would do 'all we can' to support clubs facing insolvency and players who lose their jobs, it would not intervene in 'what is essentially a private matter between a company and its creditors', she said.

But suppliers, who are currently providing content for the pay-TV service free of charge, are expected to pull the plug in the next few weeks, leaving 1.2m subscribers with only free-to-air channels such as ITV2.

If services are switched off, the Independent Television Commission will revoke its licences and rush through a tendering process to reallocate them within six weeks, said Ms Jowell. 'My contacts with the industry suggest that there are established and new industry players wanting to have a go at making this proposition work,' she said.

In a statement to the House of Commons, the Culture Secretary said: 'The fact that ITV Digital has not succeeded will not deflect us and the broadcasting industry from making a reality of the digital future. In any new technology there are bumps en route, and this has been one. Digital TV is more than ITV Digital.'

The decision to break the company up came after co-owners Granada and Carlton failed to reach settlement with the Football League over the outstanding portion of a £300m deal to show lower-division matches signed in 2000, at the height of the scramble for football broadcast rights.

Today Deloitte & Touche said 60 information packs on the sale were sent out to potential buyers in the 24 hours after the announcement of the break-up plan.

'There are people interested in the business in its entirety,' it said.

Administrator Nick Dargan had made contact with content providers and had received excellent support, she added.

But she refused to comment on reports that bids had come in for what had become ITV Digital's most famous symbol - the knitted monkey which starred in TV ads with comedian Johnny Vegas.

A spokesman for Kwik Save said the supermarket group wanted Monkey to help promote a relaunch of its stores.

He would not disclose how much the group was prepared to pay, but said: 'We would do our best to beat any other offer.'